Thanks to my ALA colleague Larry Romans, I was able to share materials with my teachers today on helping GLBT teens. It seems convoluted how we find materials to share with others. Look at the path. Larry Romans, Vanderbilt University reference and government document librarian, forwarded on part of an email from Jason D. Phillips, [...]
I had an interesting experience today. An administrator approached me to say, “Ms Chen, a parent called to say we have sexually explicit materials in the library. Can you show them to me?” My response – all our sex books remain checked out, but here’s another title in the series so you can understand how the [...]
I became aware some of my students were planning to peacefully protest the rumored ban on Silly Bands Monday during Banned Book Week . While reading their facebook pages, I realized that some were using profanity regarding administrators’ concern with the bands. How should I handle this? I enlisted other faculty members with facebook pages and they wrote [...]
Here is my rant for today. I believe designers of school libraries must include restrooms inside libraries. Those who think just having bathrooms down the hall and at corners in middle schools don’t really know how schools operate. School libraries should have restrooms in them. Why? Let me just name a few reasons. Preschool story [...]
Sept 25- October 1 is Banned Book Week which highlights the importance of intellectual freedom. In the JFK library we have a sign quoting John F. Kennedy on censorship “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to [...]
I wrote the following as an email to my middle school colleagues in Nashville. We have a two-tiered funding system for library funding. If you do not meet the state minimum standards and you have fewer than 12 items per student (projected only 10 items per student next year), then you will receive $15 per [...]
The 2011 competition theme for National History Day is Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences. There is a page for Tennessee libraries, also. I’m fortunate to have an excellent collection of titles from Enslow Publications on controversial issues including Issues in Focus, Headline Court Cases, Famous Court Cases that Became Movies, Landmark Supreme Court Cases, [...]
Bridget’s Beret by Tom Lichtenheld is a surprising find in a picture book. There are a sea of picture books for the Kindergarten – First grade group but this title has swiftly floated to the top. Bridget’s Beret by Tom Lichtenheld. NY: Christy Ottaviano Books (a division of Henry Holt & Co.), 2010. Tell me [...]
Recently a student asked me for a specific topic. Okay, EVERY DAY students ask me for specific topics, but this one stuck in my head. She asked me to find some books about immigrant refugee children who had to leave their families behind in the centers or places unknown and how they cope with their [...]
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